Crown Zenith Chase Cards: The Top 10 From the Galarian Gallery
In 2025, Kotaku described Crown Zenith as "a set so great that it spoiled the next year of the hobby". An Elite Trainer Box that cost $49.99 in January 2023 now sells for about $308, and all ten cards below are up since this March.
Crown Zenith came out on January 20, 2023, the last special set of the Sword & Shield era, and the English version of Japan's VSTAR Universe. It had no booster boxes: the packs came only inside boxed products, which rolled out from January to May. The main set has 159 cards plus one secret rare, a Pikachu numbered 160/159, one past the set's own total. But the part everybody chases is the Galarian Gallery, a 70-card bonus set numbered GG01 to GG70, and all ten cards on this list come from it.
The Gallery is where today's painted chase cards started. Its first 34 cards give everyday Pokémon a full painted scene. The next 22 do the same for the era's big hitters: V cards, giant Dynamax VMAX cards and VSTARs, which get one special move a game. Then come ten trainers, and the last four are gold. In Japan the painted ones were called Art Rares and Special Art Rares, and they grew up into the Illustration Rares and Special Illustration Rares every set has now. They were also everywhere. TCGplayer's count from more than 1,900 packs put a Gallery card in about 1 in 3 packs, where the smaller galleries in the three main Sword & Shield sets before it (Silver Tempest, Lost Origin and Astral Radiance) turned up in fewer than 1 pack in 7. A gold card came along about once every 125 packs.
Bleeding Cool scored it 10 out of 10 and called it "a historic set", and Dexerto gave it 9. One of the few complaints was TheGamer's, and it was about borders: the yellow ones on the Gallery cards looked especially ugly next to the silver-bordered V cards.
The print runs kept coming. A GameStop collection, Walmart booster bundles and a Sam's Club collection a year and a half after launch all put more packs on shelves, and by late 2023 an Elite Trainer Box was selling for less than its shop price. The singles bottomed out between late 2023 and mid 2024 and have climbed since, with the Gallery surging this spring and its top cards peaking between mid May and early July.
About the prices. The ones in the boxes below are live and move with the market; the ones in the writing are accurate as of publication, September 25, 2026. Everything is raw and near mint unless it says otherwise.
The main set is on the Crown Zenith card list and the Gallery has its own Crown Zenith Galarian Gallery card list, both with today's prices.
Glaceon to Giratina, bottom to top.
#10 Glaceon VSTAR GG40/GG70 (Galarian Gallery)
Illustrated by Gemi
Gemi's debut, and it came with a story attached.
Gemi painted Glaceon standing in a snowy clearing in low, warm light, snow drifting down and glowing specks hanging in the air, with bare branches blurred across the foreground. Pokémon's Japanese site wrote a short story around the painting, about a climber who gets lost following the glitter of diamond dust, is rescued, and catches the small Pokémon's eye across the snow. Gemi trained in Nihonga, traditional Japanese-style painting, and paints book covers for a living. Nothing on the card is louder than the snow.
It sold for about $33 at launch, dipped to about $16, and is $64.31 now.
#9 Suicune V GG38/GG70 (Galarian Gallery)
Illustrated by Atsushi Furusawa
Suicune, out for a walk at the top of the world.
Atsushi Furusawa has Suicune walking across the snow beside an icy sea, ice floes drifting behind it and jagged snow-streaked peaks beyond, under a starry sky with a meteor shower streaking through it. Its purple mane blows back and its white ribbon tails curl around it. Evolving Skies had left Suicune without a painted card, and Bleeding Cool reckoned fans had been waiting for one ever since. This was it.
Launch buyers paid about $40, the patient ones about $14, and everyone now pays $64.61.
#8 Mew GG10/GG70 (Galarian Gallery)
Illustrated by Ryota Murayama
In the original games, catching Mew took a glitch or a trip to an official event. The Pokémon on this card only had to wander into the right bit of forest.
Ryota Murayama painted Mew curled up asleep on a mossy mound of flowers in a glowing forest, hugging a speckled yellow fruit with a bite out of it. Around it: a Galarian Ponyta, two Skwovet, two Cutiefly, a Rookidee, a Cramorant, a pair of Nidoran and, in the stream at the bottom, a long-snouted fish.
It was about $13 at launch and fell under $10 in 2024. It is $65.82 now.
#7 Leafeon VSTAR GG35/GG70 (Galarian Gallery)
Illustrated by Jiro Sasumo
Leafeon has the run of the apothecary.
Jiro Sasumo has Leafeon lying on a wooden table in a sunlit herb room. Around it are stoppered jars of herbs and coloured liquid, small brown labelled bottles, lavender and lily of the valley, with bunches of flowers hung upside down to dry and bowls of dried flowers and petals along the bottom of the card. Sasumo's official illustrator profile says the goal is to make you feel "the atmosphere and story of a particular scene". Sasumo came back to Leafeon two years later for the card at number three in our Prismatic Evolutions chase cards countdown.
Launch buyers paid about $40 and bargain hunters under $20. It is $89.24 now.
#6 Darkrai VSTAR GG50/GG70 (Galarian Gallery)
Illustrated by Pani Kobayashi
Darkrai, a long way from anybody's nightmares.
Pani Kobayashi painted Darkrai hovering over a beach under a full moon half hidden by cloud, arms raised, with a turquoise sea and a shoreline speckled with flecks of every colour, all of it in grainy, coloured-pencil texture. Kobayashi painted anime backgrounds, including for the film Hula Fulla Dance, before drawing cards.
It was about $51 in March. Through April it roughly doubled, which TCGplayer suggested might be speculation ahead of the Mega Darkrai sets, Abyss Eye in Japan and Pitch Black in English, and it peaked at about $120 at the start of July before settling at $93.43.
#5 Origin Forme Palkia VSTAR GG67/GG70 (Galarian Gallery, Gold)
Illustrated by AKIRA EGAWA
Four golds, one painter, and this is the cheapest of them.
They were the first gold cards with full painted artwork, all four by AKIRA EGAWA, and they were designed to be displayed together. Here Origin Forme Palkia, in the shape it takes in Pokémon Legends: Arceus, pale pink and lavender with a pearl on its shoulder, rears up and leaps to the left through billowing gold smoke beside a steep brown mountainside, with faint rays of light coming in from the top left corner.
Anyone who bought at the bottom, about $30, has nearly quadrupled their money: it is $113.81 now.
#4 Origin Forme Dialga VSTAR GG68/GG70 (Galarian Gallery, Gold)
Illustrated by AKIRA EGAWA
Palkia has space. Dialga has time.
Origin Forme Dialga, steel blue with glowing cyan lines, flies up and to the right past a sunlit orange cliff with dark trees at its foot, with sunlight breaking in at the top right corner.
In February 2023, Kotaku called it "the peculiar booby prize" of the four golds. It launched at about $65 and fell to about $33. It is $127.59 now, and ahead of the Palkia.
#3 Arceus VSTAR GG70/GG70 (Galarian Gallery, Gold)
Illustrated by AKIRA EGAWA
Pokémon's creation myth, done in amber.
Arceus faces you straight on, floating above a small peak glowing orange at its tip, at the heart of a swirling amber vortex of cloud and light flecked with gold. EGAWA also painted the giant Mew VMAX sending buses flying at number three in our Fusion Strike chase cards countdown.
It launched at around $110, dropped below $55, was about $120 at the start of this year and hit $250 in June. It is $210.41 now.
#2 Mewtwo VSTAR GG44/GG70 (Galarian Gallery)
Illustrated by GOSSAN
Half of a fight.
GOSSAN has Mewtwo charging a glowing psychic orb in one hand while the hillside around it explodes: boulders and dust flying, arcs of golden energy, a Charizard in the air at the top right amid streaks of flame, a Tangrowth tumbling through the sky at the top left and a Diglett peeking out at the bottom right. Charizard's end of the fight is on another card: the Charizard VSTAR promo from the Charizard Ultra-Premium Collection, drawn by KIYOTAKA OSHIYAMA. English collectors got that end about three months before this one.
It launched at around $110 and bottomed out at about $42 in April 2024. This spring it was the most valuable card in the whole set, from mid March to late May, and it peaked at about $310 in June. It is $255.40 now, and no Gallery card has been graded more.
#1 Giratina VSTAR GG69/GG70 (Galarian Gallery, Gold)
Illustrated by AKIRA EGAWA
The dark one of the four.
EGAWA painted Giratina in its Origin Forme hanging upside down, its gold head-crest pointing at the bottom of the card and six dark bronze tendrils tipped in red splaying upwards, inside a cavern-like vortex of dark brown, rust and gold lines swirling round it, with chunks of rock floating at the edges and clusters of little gold rings. It is the one gold card that looks like it might bite.
It sold for around $150 at launch, fell to about $65 by late 2023, and was about $200 in January. By May 27 it was climbing fast enough for TCGplayer to explain it: "the market simply ran out of lower-cost listings". Three weeks later it hit $433, a jump TCGplayer put partly down to EGAWA's new Mega Darkrai card, though it was already climbing before that card was shown. It is $305.80 now, down about 30 percent from the peak and still the most valuable card in the Gallery.
Is it worth grading Crown Zenith cards?
Grading this set comes down to which half of the Gallery your card is from.
| Card | Raw | PSA 10 | Profit | PSA 10 pop | Verdict |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Giratina VSTAR GG69 | $305.80 | $567.26 | $191.48 | 24,347 | Gamble |
| Mewtwo VSTAR GG44 | $255.40 | $559.59 | $234.21 | 26,597 | Gamble |
| Arceus VSTAR GG70 | $210.41 | $369.47 | $129.08 | 20,593 | Gamble |
| Origin Forme Dialga VSTAR GG68 | $127.59 | $324.21 | $166.64 | 17,326 | Gamble |
| Origin Forme Palkia VSTAR GG67 | $113.81 | $293.51 | $149.72 | 16,520 | Gamble |
| Darkrai VSTAR GG50 | $93.43 | $238.09 | $114.68 | 11,470 | Gamble |
| Leafeon VSTAR GG35 | $89.24 | $188.27 | $69.05 | 13,530 | Gamble |
| Mew GG10 | $65.82 | $540.36 | $404.56 | 7,646 | Gamble |
| Suicune V GG38 | $64.61 | $216.29 | $121.70 | 16,028 | Gamble |
| Glaceon VSTAR GG40 | $64.31 | $172.02 | $77.73 | 13,623 | Gamble |
PSA 10 is our market estimate from recent graded sales. Profit is what is left after buying the card raw and paying the grading fee and shipping. PSA 10 pop is how many copies PSA has graded a 10 so far: copies graded, not sold, and the supply a new slab would join. Safe bet means a PSA 9 still turns a profit; Gamble means only a 10 does.
The V, VSTAR and gold cards grade well: across the Gallery they come back a PSA 10 a little over half the time, and on this list a 10 sells for roughly two to three times a raw copy, a bit under twice for the Giratina and the Arceus. Fall one short and the 9 is worth about the same as the card was ungraded, so the fee is the whole of the risk.
The painted cards of everyday Pokémon in the first half of the Gallery are another matter. Across all 34 of them, only about 29 percent of PSA grades are 10s. The Mew is the one that matters: it has been graded almost 28,000 times, about twice as often as any other card from that half, and it gets its 10 no more often than the rest, about 28 percent of the time. With so few making it, a PSA 10 Mew is worth around eight times a raw copy, and even a 9 sells for comfortably more than raw.
So the Mew is the one card here where grading pays even on a miss. For everything else it is a 10 or a lost fee. Before a Mew goes anywhere near PSA, show Slab Advisor a photo: it estimates the grade and prices that grade on the spot.
The rest of the Gallery
The Deoxys VMAX is next, at about $60. Akira Komayama, who also drew the breakdancing Genesect in Fusion Strike, stood Deoxys in a pink beam under a huge red shape that Pokémon's Japanese site identifies as a Gigantamax Orbeetle. Like the Gallery's other VMAX cards, it comes back a PSA 10 more than three times in four.
Further down, nine of the Gallery's everyday Pokémon cards, GG26 to GG34, all by Kouki Saitou, join up into one woodland scene with Pikachu in the middle panel. And the main set's secret rare Pikachu, by You Iribi, is about $49 and has been graded more than any card in the set.
The Crown Zenith Galarian Gallery card list runs all seventy, GG01 to GG70, at today's prices.
Every set since has had painted cards like these, and none of them has made Crown Zenith's look any cheaper.